Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru – 04

「男の戦いは修羅場」 (Otoko no Tatakai wa Shuraba)
“Fighting Over a Guy is a Battlefield”

I felt rage and anger when stupid pretty boy picked on Chiwa with such raw harshness. I wanted to yell at Masuzu for being such a self-proclaimed bitch and doing a good job at it. I couldn’t bear to look at the screen during Eita’s delusional chuunibyou scene. I felt gutted in the stomach when Sakagami and his goonies were utter assholes with their punches, and I yelled at Chiwa for backing off her ass whooping and begged that she beat those shits up as much as they did Eita. Finally, at the end of it all, I groaned as Eita was just as thick as he was at the beginning of the episode, with no sign of changing in sight.

As you can imagine, I’m emotionally tired after watching this episode, squirming or struggling to watch the screen for a variety of reasons. OreShura hit all the awkward buttons this episode, but was it effective in developing the episode?

Masuzu, in her warped view of the world as a try-hard self-proclaimed queen bitch, reveals herself to have predicted Sakagami’s dickhead attitude this entire time, all in order to shatter Chiwa’s position on love and covert her to anti-love. While it is clear at this point that Masuzu feels conflicted in her actions, Masuzu has demonstrated that she’s willing to cross many lines to bring her plans into fruition
. While this side of Masuzu may be overwhelming for some readers (it sure as hell was for me), there does exist some affection from our hard-willed Masuzu near the end of the episode, confirming Masuzu’s own vulnerability to romantic human emotions, especially with the line, “I don’t want to be alone anymore…” While not many of us can figure her out completely at this point due to her seemingly contradictory actions, I expect such revelations to be the prize given at the end of this awkward adventure.

Masuzu’s flaws have shown themselves primarily because her fake boyfriend, Eita, has shown himself to be a charming person in his own delusional and awkward way. I’m unsure of whether or not Eita was aware that he’d get himself beat up that hard charging in, but the message he sent still stands strong. Despite his own anti-love message, Eita has the respect to know that he has no right to force such ideals on anyone else, especially if it involves hurting a friend in the process. With only the power of platonic friendship and his crazed delusions, Eita gets his ass kicked in order to save Chiwa from more public humiliation. Of course Chiwa saves his ass in time thanks to some convenient kendo-shaped objects, but crazy Eita still gets his point across, both to the pessimistic Masuzu and Chiwa, of which the latter has fallen for him even more than before. Eita still fails to notice either girl’s affections for him, but at the very least his sense of dignity and protection partially redeems his shortcomings. By proving the depth of how much he cares for her, Eita’s done something right by setting this rom com back on the right track with Chiwa back on-board.

There is one lingering issue that still remains with Eita among the ruins of the aftermath–who was Eita referring to when he stated that, “she’s watching!” While this sense of ambiguity is a key element of a romantic comedy, there appears to be one girl on the show that seems to understand Eita’s statement…and it’s a character that has yet to be introduced. Though seemingly quiet, this new character is looking to be quite bold, putting that love letter in what’s supposedly Eita’s locker, all before we discover her name! The next episode looks to be shaping in which the rest of the characters will get a proper introduction, with a student council type and quiet type looking to complete the cast! Although OreShura makes for a hard watch by hitting all my “shudder” areas, I’ll give it merit for not going easy in making its plot not so comfortable…if that makes sense at all.

Hmmm… I’d go with Kotoura-san’s Manabe for that award so far this season. He’s been pretty hilarious to watch and I’ve been impressed at how he’s been characterized thus far, despite not knowing much about him =03.

We get it, you read the light novel and are therefore privvy to knowledge that many (maybe even most) of us don’t… I don’t understand the point of posts like yours, why can’t you let people who haven’t read the light novels enjoy just watching the anime as is? Why do you feel the need to have to hint and foreshadow things that no one else is asking for?

The one thing that really irked me about this episode was that while Eita was getting his butt kicked no one around that was watching decided to help. But I guess this show is still pretty good considering that I just wanted to jump in there and help eita out, even three against two would be better than him being there alone, though I do commend him for being there to help out his friend.

Masuzu has admitted that she’s a liar, but about what? It’s not clear what her real feelings are. Her demeanor sometimes agrees with her words but sometimes it conflicts. When she says she doesn’t want to be alone is it a lie or all or partly true? Is she truly a sadist or is that the only way she figures she can get past Eita’s emotional armor? She’s making my head hurt. Any clue they leave can just as easily be taken away by her next action or statement.

I was quite impressed with this episode. I didn’t expect Saka-whatever to be an asshole, so I thought the ep would take a Eimazu-follows-Chiwa-all-day type of deal, so it made me sympathize with Chiwa’s situation more. Eita trying to save the day after he seen how badly they made fun of her is not surprising, but Chiwa beating them up using her kendo skills were. I actually found this refreshing, since usually the guy gets beaten up as the girl is made out to be weak, helpless, and defenseless. That inner strength really reflects Chiwa’s character, so I really liked it =03.

As far as Masuzu goes, I couldn’t tell if her “don’t leave me alone” was fake or real, since she had a menacing, hateful look after he left. Obviously some issue in her past life. Perhaps it was merely because whatever happened to her, she is traumatized by it, but seeing Eita, she thought she found someone who can relate to her. However, Eita, despite feeling the same way about love, doesn’t feel….how to say….as in despair as she does, so that’s the reason why she says he “has no clue”.

One of the things I love about this show is that Eita’s priority is given to Chiwa(least for now). While I can understand a char not liking his/her childhood friend as a lover, and some beauty/interesting char comes out of nowhere and said char is fascinated by him/her(though Eita is not interested in anyone), I usually can’t get over how said char ignores everything the childhood friend does, but not the beauty/interesting char. If a person is your childhood friend, esp if they’re relatively close, you should generally want to put the childhood friend’s needs above someone you just met, and I can see that Eita definitely values Chiwa over Masuzu, not even counting the flashback in ep 3. To clarify, the childhood friend is not getting the deep short end of the stick as in many other romantic comedies, keeping the ‘power balance’ between the two in the middle =03. It will be interesting to see who comes out on top.

Considering that flashback, and the title of the show, it really is meant to be a battleground between the two. I would say the harem ending is inevitable, but I don’t see his dense personality changing any time soon (even if he does figure out love).

I think people are too caught up by what the characters say rather than what they do or feel. Eita isn’t uninterested in Chiwa. Watch him as he talks about her to Masuzu. He thinks he’s just describing her situation but he lights up when he does talk about her. Masuzu sees this clearly and she challenges him on it, or at least tries to. She’s onto something with her talk of apathy being the opposite of love. And it concerns her.

Having said that, I dunno what Eita is truly feeling now. (And no, I don’t particularly want any morons who’ve read the novel to blurt it out. Grow up already. If I wanted to read the novel, I would. Your having read the novel does not make you insightful. But I digress.)

I find this to be a fascinating show, with its awkward, painful scenes that somehow fit in with its good, honest dialogue and interesting characters who are deeper and more likeable than they initially appeared to be. With each episode, I feel like watching them all again because I feel that I’ve missed something important, some piece of the puzzle. I end up spending more time thinking about this show and these characters than any I’ve watched in a while.

The “she” part was actually a mistranslation on cruncyroll’s part as Kanojo can have the meaning of both “girlfriend” and referring to a girl, hence Chiwa asking if he was referring to her and getting all excited since she wasn’t aware Masuzu was there.

Also, they changed up the end scene as Masuzu was already supposed to know that Chiwa was having a shower and she explains to Eita what a kiss means to her, which is actually important for the volume the following episodes will cover so I’m hoping they put that in somewhere next episode.

On another note, I should actually get around to reading Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure… I feel bad not knowing when a Jojo reference pops up. I guess that makes me a blasphemer in Masuzu’s book. T_T

Masuzu different huh. I can name 5 anime off the top of my head that featured girls that had total apathy for love yet ended up right in the middle of it. However most of them were kind hearted. I can only think of 2 others that were forcing themselves to be a bitch so they wouldn’t fall in love.

Zanibas, your first paragraph perfectly describes how I felt watching this episode. Unfortunately for me, I was looking forward to seeing the next episode of Oreshura but ended up feeling really uncomfortable watching the events unfold. Reading a lot of discussions on forums about this episode brought out some Masuzu shippers that were praising the episode and Masuzu. Now I haven’t particularly picked a favorite of the two heroines yet, but Masuzu really got on my nerves this episode, especially after she revealed her plan for Chiwa and trying to stop Eita from helping her. Eita on the other hand, seems to show all the signs of knowing Chiwa’s feelings for him, but he has the dense trait forcibly written into his character (which doesn’t make sense seeing how perceptive he is about Chiwa). I’m hoping that this was just a difficult chapter to execute, but this episode left a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to liking the main characters. Hopefully, they change my mind in the coming episodes.

WHile he is a little think-headed, I think that Eita does realize that Chiwa has feelings for him. But, he’s a teenager and given his disposition on love is even less knowledgeable than the average teenager in that matter, and the average teenager isn’t that knowledgeable despite what they will say. I could see him remaining quiet on the issue because even if he has no romantic feelings for her he wants to stay friends with her and is afraid of rocking the boat by confronting the issue. Hell, for all he knows it could be just a crush. I mean if this spirited determined girl doesn’t even bother confronting him with her feelings, which are obvious enough for him to see, she must, in his mind, not see it as a serious infatuation.

Overall, I really don’t think given his attitude that Eita is completely ready for a “real” relationship yet. Then again the growing-up that would lead to that is probably the point of the story.

As for Masuzu, I find her an interesting character but we don’t know enough about her to truly make a final decision either way.

I agree with your thoughts on why Eita may not want to confront the issue–he is anti-love–but what I don’t like is how he is pretty perceptive of Chiwa’s feelings at times, then later on will be like “why is she acting this way?”. Idk, but to me that seems like character inconsistency. Gah, I should just give up. All male leads are made to be dense, why should I expect them to stay that way if the author makes us think otherwise.

Well they really don’t seem as anti-love as they proclaim. It all seems kind of stupid at this point. I think it would have been more interesting if Masuzu was indifferent and Eita fell for her instead. I don’t think I can bear to watch if its going to be generic harem developments with embarrassing Chuunibyou interludes.

So you’re saying the reason why there are so many wimpy males & super girls in anime is because they’re more interesting to watch. That’s a given but that doesn’t explain the reason they this is such a common practice in the industry, & for so long. If you count on that. Is it MORE interesting that it has been repeated so many times rather than just plain being interesting. You HAVE to give the people what they want. It’s all about money.

Character flaws in MCs are always a must. I’m not talking about the completely polar opposite of your usual weak dense male either. I’m talking about a guy who has the human quality of thinking or someone with any kind of backbone w/o the inherent flaw of either being stupid or perverted. MCs in anime usually need a balance of qualities & flaws in order to be believable person.

The more handsome/strong they are the more skeletons they have to have in their closet. The more weak/dense they are the more kind/thoughtful they have to be. Yes they’re different levels of being dense & thoughtful at the same time – it’s called love. A MC will hardly ever know a girl likes him yet can be totally insightful about every other feeling they display. It’s almost like some kind of joke.

Its just easier to have your typical weak dense male than conceptualize a person with REAL character qualities & flaws. It’s also “typical” because they have been doing it in various capacities for the last 30 years. That’s why its such a great thing when MCs come about that don’t have obvious flaws of being weak & dense.

All in all, money talks. What’s popular sells, although sales figures & TV ratings are ALWAYS inflated to unbelievable numbers. Viewers usually think what they want to anyway – since they aren’t anime characters.

They’re weak because your typical Japanese teenage male is. It makes it easier for the majority of your audience to put themselves in the protags situation. In other words, its just a delusional fallacy. Being naive & dense comes with the territory too. It’s almost like they HAVE to be that way or it’ll be some crime against anime. Too bad most of my favorite characters are those crimes against anime.

I think “crimes against anime” is exaggerating too much, but your explantation pretty much explains the characterization of similar guys like Eita. For me, these kind of main characters don’t really bother me, but it is nice to see an unorthodox character once in a while in anime.

This might be a little disturbing but the clear reason why all these males are so dense is so that they make their general audience feel smart. It’s not all that surprising that a lot of these anime resorted to psychological warfare to keep their viewers entertained back in the 90s. It was really successful so why change it.

I don’t hear too much complaining on the chan & bbs sites over there. Most of the complaining I hear actually comes from us westerners – not exactly their targeted audience. Whenever we do get a male with a backbone right off the bat, the sites over there light up like crazy. So yeah, the 3-5% of backboned, thoughtful males are a crime against anime.

They can keep their wimpy dense MCs forever if it makes them happy. Hell, its their money that keeps anime going strong anyway.

This is a strange generalization and not one that fits very well with my acquaintances. Actually, it’s meaningless since the source of conflict is also a Japanese high school student.

It is a basic dramatic technique to give the main character a flaw that heightens the conflict. It’s not such an interesting story to watch the strong, handsome, insightful man have a smooth relationship with his love interest and get married and have 2 kids and a dog.

Also, note that Aristotle believed that comedy fundamentally is about imitating the behaviors of inferior people. This and the above are probably why the main character is always dense. There is usually an insightful friend who will act as a foil to intensify this effect.

As for why they’re weak, being physically stronger than the other person and beating them up is a less impressive act of courage or less indicative of an act of passion than getting involved in a situation that is risky to oneself. It also is less dramatic than struggle.

The bbs are not so representative since it is subject to statistical bias (that is to say, only the type of person who goes to anime bbs are posting, though they may or may not be a major market for the DVDs). The magazines that publish this stuff get their data from surveys and volume sales that both suffer from different types of bias.

I agree with @Megas most harem,romcom protagonists are like a plot device to keep the show going forward than a actual character.

@rufe
Characters that go to the strong,smart,understanding extreme are just as boring as the weak,idiotic,dense extreme – the interesting characters are what comes between the two extremes.Plus, you can only laugh at the same joke so many times and dense,perverted harem/romcom protagonists are just not funny anymore.

The weak/dense guys stopped being funny or interesting a long time ago. Whenever they do show up, the first thing you hear (at least on this site) is how boring, uninteresting, or annoying they are. They’re most likely placeholders that make other characters seem more interesting – IE Masuzu.

Not only that but this show keeps on making sure they tell us that He’s being dense, as if that wasn’t already apparent. The show shouldn’t HAVE to call itself out like that unless they was shielding just how normal Masuzu is. I have 5 sisters, & at some point they all love troubles: From being in it, out of it, unrequited, indifferent to it, or apathetic to it. It’s a common female trait.

It’s actually much more interesting to me that Eita is also, most guy just don’t care or go along with the flow when it comes to relationships, unless they were severely hurt at the end of one. The show already screwed itself over when Eita acknowledged his hate for love. Your typical dense guy DOESN’T even know love exists. So to make up for that, they keep on telling us he’s dense. I’m buying that just as much as I’m buying that Masuzu wants to be a bitch.

Considering the guy is a studyholic and probably doesn’t play sports or practice any martial art, you actually expect him to have fighting skill? He’s not the bishounen in a shoujo who can do everything.

I can expect for a guy to be stronger than a little girl when he is nearly double the size from her, even when he is just “a studyholic and probably doesn’t play sports or practice any martial art”.
The same about those thugs. How weak can they be when even a little girl can beat them? How pathetic.

that little girl is a prodigy kendo champ/wouldbecaptain if she didnt get injured! shed wreck anyone without a gun/knife/stickkkk! did you not see that they are implying all she does is swing a stick in her spare time shes waaaay strong at it! the main chacter is weak cuz he still a boy and going against a group of older boys of course he loses this isnt like hes some super ninja vs noobs cuz that sakagami guy alone is enough to pwn him! his only shot was sacking them in the junk but thats 3 junks to sack nearly impossible to do before you get pwnt. besides theyre all just kids/boys anyways if someone hit you on head with stick itll still hurt the girl isnt a 2 yr old kid haha itll hurt! if the thugs had a weapon shed been toast or if she didnt have a stick shed been toast… in short she had a weapon they were unarmed :P

It should also be noted that Kendo is nothing like western style fencing in that there is a reason why you need heavy protection gear while practicing it: You hit real hard as a lose hit doesn’t count. So it’s not strange at all that a competitive Kendo user would be able to beat up some average dudes, even if they are somewhat sporty and she is a girl, as long as she got a stick.

It’s a bit strange that poeple expect the cumputer geek to stand up to the older sports jock and his two friends in a fist fight.

I was hoping when Sakagami turned out to be a total ass that Chiwa would instantly show relief and beat their asses to a pulp immediately. Instead it turned into complete uneasiness with Eita going Chuunibyou and then getting smashed trying to get Sakagami to apologize to Chiwa…and I can’t remember….did we even get that apology in the end? I recall getting an apology…from Chiwa to Sakagami!

I am going to be very unpopular for saying this, but for some reason something in this show just isn’t clicking for me. One thing could be how annoying Eita is. Yes, harem leads are generally dense in most anime…but there is a fine line between densely funny and densely annoying, but this show has far crossed that line. Eita has to be the densest lead I have seen in any series since Infinite Stratos (and I watch a lot of romcoms). Masuzu on the other hand is just unlikable; whether it is due to the way the story has been written, or the fact that nothing special about her has been shown in the anime except bullying Chiwa. Another thing is that I find this series too generic. A lot of people will flame me for this too, but I have seen so many generic romcoms and have liked a large number of them. Reason being that even though they were generic, there was still something which made it special and stand out. This series? Not so much…yet.

Usually by the end of the 3rd or 4th episode I would decide whether I want to keep watching or drop a series. The only thing saving this series for me so far is that not all the characters have been introduced yet. Speaking of which, a new character will be introduced next week. I am hoping that this will bring about a new freshness to this series which definitely needs it.

I enjoy this show so I don’t agree with you, but I liked your post anyway for exposing a clear point of view of what is not working for some people. For me, I just watch it to have fun, so far I’m not disappointed.
Hope that in the end it’ll manage to turn good for you too, but the show has undoubtedly various generic traits so it will depend on how tolerant you are of them.

Does Masuzu’s threat even stand anymore? He already showed his chuunibyou in broad daylight and considering how people were standing out at least one of them has already taken and uploaded a video. I don’t really dislike (or understand) Masuzu but so far the series seems to be overwhelmingly in the favor of Chiwa anyways so I wonder if Masuzu will actually do anything to make herself more likable instead of just going through the motions of a relationship.

Masuzu is easily the most interesting character the series has presented us so far.
Her contradictory behavior makes us question about her past and how it affected her personality and her motives, which just adds to the big mistery she is so far. Also shes the only character who somewhat walks around that grey area, being likeable and unlikeable at the same time.

I can understand people disliking her (shes a bith sometimes, yea), but saying shes a bad character couldnt be more off (at least for this series standards).

.all the ones who downvote masuzu are almost girls who can relate to the same situation… girls “trying hard to be nice” wondering why the guy they like even though how nice they are to him leaves them at friendzone… choosing the more “interesting ones”…
chiwa= nice and boring good as a friend
masuzu= interesting..

And those guys usually ends up getting their hearts broken by those girls.It’s like a gender swapped version of how some girls are attracted to ‘bad boys’ – neither of those end well.To be fair there are some people who just gives off the impression of being a jerk or a bitch while having a good heart, but Masuzu has long since crossed that line.
BTW since you seem to think only girls dislike Masuzu I should point out I’m a guy.

main character way more bearable than that kotoura girl character shes way more annoying! biatch without manners blurting out everyones secrets without hesitation some kind friend she is!! as for the main character of Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru hes a boy and boys are weak nothing wrong with that… esp a boy that only studies and doesnt practice any physical activities how can you expect him to be strong hes studying to be a doctor how many strongman dr you know? maybe strong man nurses ahah but dr mostly arent… if you argued that he should been smarter about it then at least thats a point! he should have some how out witted them with words. he sorta did by acting all KARAZZZY but then he had to go and push the guy LOL taht was pretty stupid you can fault that detail of why hed still pick a fight when they backed off… well actually hes trying to be a hero and making the guy apologize but thats completely nuts hes supposed to be a smart boy haha… other than him trying to be a hero when hes just a punching bag. this shows going well so far! he has a girl friend…. shes mysterious… shes unpredictable…. childhood friend is a puny runt that suffered injuries that changed his life… what else you want in a show!

So the girl whose “blurting out everyones secrets without hesitation” is a “biatch” and the girl who uses secrets for blackmail is “mysterious” and “unpredictable”? Yea, that makes perfect sense.
To put it bluntly Masuzu is just jealous and weak.She’s obviously miserable so she’s jealous of people who aren’t and she also has conflicting feelings about Eita – said conflicts sprung from the fact she’s too weak to let go of something hurtful that happened in the past.

“perfect sense”.
of course her “jealous and weak” attributes resulted into a girlfriend for the main character even if its fake its been a learning experience for all. Shes just what he needed to grow out of his I hate love nonsense. He doesnt even see the tacobell dog girl as a romantic interest. yeah thats def a score for him.

on the other hand the other girl is blurting out everyones secret resulted in no friends no parents plus one equally dimwitted partner score for her? hardly. and a club thats using her.

the whole story is major bogus shes able to just become self sufficient just like that? the biggest upset of the of show is she learns NOTHING from her past its like shes doing all teh same damn things to get herself outcasted again why did she even needed to transfer out if shes gonna be all lippy to everyone… its just majorly majorly painful to see how stupid it all is…. i can understand at first she doenst understand she doesnt get it. she has a special power. but for her new school she should at least differentiate when someone is moving their lips/mouths and when theyre thinking not moving their lips/mouths yet shes still acting like a total BIATCH know it all exploiting her mindreading powers and talking to them with a nasty attitude. She has NO intentions to start anew its just same crap all over again why did she even needed to transfer??? shes repeating the damn things taht got people to distance themselves from her. i guess this is what you called forced artificial circumstances so she could meet that perfect dimwitted guy made just for her… oh this is “perfect sense” right?

“of course her “jealous and weak” attributes resulted into a girlfriend for the main character even if its fake its been a learning experience for all. Shes just what he needed to grow out of his I hate love nonsense.”

“i guess this is what you called forced artificial circumstances so she could meet that perfect dimwitted guy made just for her…”

See the similarity?

I’m not interested in defending another show here and Eita is a romcom+harem protagonist he wouldn’t notice a romantic interest in a girl even if she tried to have sex with him.
But two things, first, Eita doesn’t ‘hate’ love he’s not interested in it, which is perfectly fine.Second your point doesn’t justify Masuzu’s actions and if she’s consciously doing it then it’s even worse, for thinking she has the right to force her view of how one should live onto him.

three things. first hes “anti-love” which means against love not just not interested which could be hate… or maybe its just lost in translation stuff but youre being too literal… second the princess girl kissed him he noticed her for sure.(it was probably more than just a joke shes starting to fall for him gradually shell be in love i think ahha.) as for chiwawawwa shes family hed never think of her the same way shes a sister not sexfriend :). third Masuzu’s motive is yet to be revealed so ill only say whats on my mind… shes full of angst and so shes using a guy and his friend as her way to cope with the insecurities she has about being too popular not being able to relax because everyone is interested in here always watching her…

“first hes “anti-love” which means against love not just not interested which could be hate”

That’s fine as long as he doesn’t try to push that onto other people, which is what Masuzu does.
And Masuzu’s motive whether it’s the one you suggested or something else, still doesn’t justify her actions or make her a likable character.

oops my bad didnt finish off my third point…in my opinion shes using them (maincharacter and childhoodfriend) as a distraction to divert attention away from her yeah shes spreading the wealth…the popularity! … yes shes weak and cant handle the pressures of being popular… oh noes? shes a humangirl character just want to be left alone dont want all the attention!! most people crumble from being too popular. Masuzu uses her brain and CONSCRIPTED help instead of rocking in corner crying/substance abusing cause the its a cruel world out there D: with Eita keeping all the lover boys busy(jealousy) and chiwawawa taking care of general publics interest(gossips) Masuzu enjoying some much needed space! she was suffocated by all the unwanted attention! it like shes the grinch in the nasty grinch phase to slowly develop to grow a bigger heart and learn to loooove…

meh i was getting to that treat her like the grinch you hate his guts hes nasty… hes mean… you may not like him at the start however he learns and redeems himself theres character growth in him and i think there will be character growth in her … in the end you must forgive them for their shortcomings! she will start to open up her heart more and be less EVIL biatch more hawt girlfrand :) shell change ! count on it! i think ;) hehee

Because it’s totally fine to ruin other peoples lives to make yourself feel better.Compared to that “rocking in corner crying/substance abusing cause the its a cruel world out there” is better.
Your arguments(if correct) are making Masuzu even less likable for me and much less justifiable.

“Because it’s totally fine to ruin other peoples lives to make yourself feel better” well thats convenient you sliced up what i said out of context… what i was saying was rather than suffering alone shed rather make friends to get through the pressures in her own twisted ways shes trying to reach out for help… example if she did throw that stick to chiwawa then that just proves she cares about her friends she could have just stood their watching and cackling if she were truly bad as you think she was… yes its not fine to hurt others but as long as youre not a total sociopath and learn to change its part of growing up its phase shes going through! shell come to learn that what she did was wrong… and will probably change for the better…

kotoura on the other hand doenst seem like she wants to change much at all… she just cant keep her big mouth shut … blabbing everyones secret including her “best friends” out loud for everyone to hear their lives werent changed? they didnt get hurt? yes they did get hurt big time… going to her new school she didnt have to be such a know it all using her mind reading ability to talk people off like shes better than them… and then one eps shes all quiet when just not long shes telling them off… it dont make no sense! shes always exploiting her abilitiesss the girl really just need some manners! shes not a real friend just a self pitying woe is me biatchhhh get over yourself already! she has a “real” friend in her perfect custom made boyfriend and she still doesnt get it that guy is happy to get pwnt for anyday and still she abdandons him what a selfish prick!

Masuzu’s character will unravel layer by layer shell grow to be kinder sweeter as each eps goes by! kotoura’s character will just continue to bad and simple shell read all your thoughts and take it against you. she wont let her boyfriend think naughty thoughts about her either pretty interesting character and lovable right?

I did that because that’s what your argument sums up to – that Masuzu is under a lot of pressure and she needs a breather and time to grow/learn, but ones who pay the price for that are two people who wouldn’t want anything to do with her.It’s one thing to ask for help, but it’s a completely different story when you force someone to help you.
And you say she becomes better later, but the thing is for most viewers she’s already past the point where she is redeemable.If I were to use a rather extreme analogy say a guy rapes a girl and then blackmails her, but later falls in love with her and later learns what he did was wrong and becomes a better person – you think that would make him a redeemable/likable character for the viewers? Same thing here Masuzu is just past the point she can be redeemed or be likable.

If I were to use a rather extreme analogy say a guy rapes a girl and then blackmails her, but later falls in love with her and later learns what he did was wrong and becomes a better person – you think that would make him a redeemable/likable character for the viewers? Same thing here Masuzu is just past the point she can be redeemed or be likable.

woah woah that extreme analogy is not the same here at all! masuzu hasnt done enough to be unforgivable… sure she stoled eitas first kiss but he *kissssed a girl and likkkked itttt* it felt so wrong it felt so right…yeeeeee… for the most part even when they were making fools of themselves the two were enjoying it save for that 4th ep when them thugs pwnt eita… masuzu’s schemes were mean but it did serve chiwa well! her popularity did sky rocket as she always wanted to be a popular girl!! yeahh you made a extreme case and its not comparable at all youve just compared brussel sprouts to apples okkk buddddy that doenst fly! as for the forced help when youre desperate you desperate youll do stuff that isnt exactly conventional like ask can you please help me :P she probably narrowed downt he class list and he was the best candidate and it so happens she has leverage over him haha see story and even gives you a life lesson dont be selling off your diary or some popular girl will blackmail and even kiss you… oh wait… scratch the good parts just dont sell your diary/journal off mkaaay… your exaample just sounds like it came from some bad hentai story toooo much hentai for you buddddy! this is a actual anime lols

I know it’s not the same that’s why I said ‘extreme’ it was meant to emphasize how irredeemable/unforgivable Masuzu has become if it’s not so for you that’s fine but not everyone shares your view.
As for the example I used, I just used the plot of this show and what you said about it to make it up – swap genders in the show and made the guy(Masuzu) even more detestable – if you think it’s a hentai story, well……

I don’t think this discussion is getting us anywhere we’ll just keep repeating the same things over and over again, so I’ll end it here.

you clearly wrote a guy rapes a girl and then it becomes ok…. if thats not a hentai plot … what is? k please dont answer lol. and then you went to write “Same thing here Masuzu is just past the point she can be redeemed or be likable.” same thing as a guy raping a girl and saying its ok… ummm worst masuzu has done was kiss him unexpectedly thats hardly rape… haha of course this isnt getting anywhere youre always going off about how hes beyond redemption when all shes done is a farce of a blackmail and club to hang out with two people… sure she suggests chiwa to do some odd things but it was never forced upon she chose to carry those activities out a gun was not put to her head thinking now even tho with the thugs they all had some fun eita got to go nuts and “save” his childhood friend chiwa litterally save him… and masuza got to see what real friendship is about friends stick up for friends!

This goes against my better judgment to answer this, but I suggest you try looking up the words ‘extreme’ and ‘emphasize’ in a dictionary.
And if you actually believe what you wrote and aren’t simply trying to troll me, then I also suggest you either consult a English language professor or a psychological therapist or both.

haha ok azure thanks for the comments however… extreme and emphasis has no meaning when your example and what youre trying to compare it too are off base… its like arguing bullying amongst kids is wrong and then you go and give and example about childporn… its so far off that even if you say its extreme and youre emphasizing you still go to say that theyre “SAME THING” thats a pretty bad point is what i was getting at. All this to say shes past point of redemption but she hasnt done much so you had to go and make up a really bad case to say shes bad… im sure i dont need to consult a English language professor or a psychological therapist to confirm that what you post is trolling me… you ran out of valid reasons so you made up something completely off base to argue i think you buddy might need to consult both…

just finished reading the LN till volume 4.. for all those who hate masuzu.. kindly read the LN or just let the anime proceed first.. right now.. you only see in the surface.. how can you call yourselves anime viewers..

I for one respect other people’s comments and appreciate it when others respect mine. However, I had a good laugh at your comment flaming everyone who does not like Masuzu (me being one of them). Sounds like you definition of anime viewers is one that just simply watches anime in hope that something good happens later on in the season even though they don’t enjoy the present?

I for one don’t watch anime for the sake of watching anime. I view the series which are currently showing, pick the ones I like, and roll with it. This is why some people use the 3 episode rule. There is so much good anime out there (this season in particular), so if one particular series just isn’t clicking for a viewer, why bother to stick around until the end of the season when something good “might” happen? Time is precious, and I rather spend it watching something I currently enjoy then something I might enjoy in the future.

And another thing you have pointed out – we are anime viewers. We judge based on what we have seen in the anime, not what happens in the LN. For all you know, the anime staff might completely blotch up the later volumes of the LN, and those who have stuck around waiting for something to happen, only to be disappointed again.

This is in no disrespect to Masuzu. If you like her character, that’s great. Unfortunately a number of viewers think otherwise. If you want to change our opinion, point out something which has already been shown in the anime which should change our opinion.

Guess I’ll take a shot at defending her though it probably won’t be much of a defense. I don’t think she’s using him to deflect unwanted popularity as much as the fact she wants someone as a conspirator. She’s alone in which she can’t make friends with girls due to them distancing from her and she isn’t going to be making friends with guys where at most they’ll just treat her as an idol or something. Considering you guys said she did it to redirect the attention to someone else, I’d have to disagree where in the end attention or not, she’d still be alone at the top. And with that personality of hers, I really don’t see her as very good at making friends.

Onto why she chose Eita. The reason why she chose him were because he was similar to her on the facts of love and that he wouldn’t betray her. That’s the big thing I think actually. He won’t betray her. If she actually dated another guy, there’s a very high chance that her natural sadism would peek through and probably cause a lot of problems. She wants Eita so she can have a person where she can actually be herself, someone who knows her nasty side. People are social creatures and it’s more attractive to have someone who thinks similarly at your side. Eita’s probably the first person she could consider a friend even if it did start by blackmailing. The boyfriend part I think is to just force the both of them to spend time with each other. I guess in the end, it’s a twisted way of trying to make friends.

Now onto the popularity schemes. If anything she takes it half seriously. The guitar gig was definitely a cruel thing to do for her own amusement. She was pretty serious about Jojo though and that was most definitely legitimate advice. However her second scheme, the one involving the skit done by Eita and Chiwa was actually something she took seriously. She didn’t make it so that people would see them as fools but rather she wanted it to be taken seriously. Now getting to the fourth episode, on how she’s evil about the Sakagami thing, that was also definitely cruel. However one of the things I noted was that she isn’t as heartless as she’d like to say she is. If she had wanted to just cause Chiwa to despair, she could’ve just let those guys beat Eita up, yet she decided to provide Chiwa with the weapon to protect Eita. If I were to say, she probably did so not for Chiwa’s sake, but rather because she had begun to care a bit for Eita, especially from the fact when he said “His girlfriend is watching.” This probably cemented the fact in her head that Eita was definitely not the sort of person who would betray her. As a human she doesn’t want to be alone despite being a manipulative, cruel, insensitive bitch of a girl.

Also just a final thought, but I think this isn’t a story about Eita and his harem hijinks as much as it is a story about the growth of Masuzu through the people around her.

ahhaha oh snap i didnt read your commnents until after i wrote mines so we do share most of teh same views im glad ! just some disagreement but minor i still think she wanted to have them as her shields and well part of that was her wanting friends a group to hang out with…three is company tooooo! yeah agreed she wanted a loyal friend who sticks by her think and thin the good time and the bad… its basically his friendship with chiwawa theyve stuck by each other for tough times her injury his parental abandonment… yeah masuzu is a bitch too but shes just lonely more like hitagi from bakemongatari(less sexxyness) both try to sting with words and are manipulative but they do care!

If your right I should also add trust issues to her being weak and jealous.I can disagree with many points here, but to keep it short – they went overboard with the “manipulative, cruel, insensitive bitch of a girl” side of things, to the point most people would consider her irredeemable.

That is nonsense and you are exaggerating.
It would be good for you to not look at people in black and white, there is something more to people than that.
It’s exactly because of those flaws, and the reason for those flaws (don’t want to spoil), that make her human and that make her a good and interesting character. Heck, without Masuzu this Anime would be nothing at all.
I just don’t know if this adaption will be good.

In my opinion though, I think that’s fine. As Masuzu said, the opposite of love isn’t hate, but rather apathy. I’d actually like to point something out, in which blackmailing Eita was actually a smart move on her part. The guy was completely apathetic to her and would most likely have remained apathetic to her. It made it so that he was aware and would start with a strong dislike for her, but gave an actual starting line. It’s fine that people hate her because it does a job of making people actually care. That or makes them drop the show.

@hungrybear
If your talking about actual people I know they are much more complicated, but anime characters are rarely so and that doesn’t mean I have to tolerate watching a show that tries to justify a character I dislike.

@red
From the way you over-analyzed Masuzu’s character it’s obvious you like her character a lot and I think you give her too much credit, which is fine, I do it too when I really like a character – sometimes even without realizing it myself.But IMO opposite to love is hate, apathy is a state that exists outside those scales.
And this isn’t the first time a show used a character’s dis-likability to try keep the audience interested and I strongly disapprove of that method.So like you said this will be a drop for me.

@Azure
There are many fictional charaters that are complicated and deeper than your standart shounen charater. But the point here is that unlike most anime characters, Masuzu is in fact more complicated. That’s why seeing things in black and white doesn’t really work.
And if you so strongly dislike a character that you even need to exaggerate, then this show is just not for you.

But the point I was making was even the more complicated/deep anime characters are no where near actual human complexity.And Masuzu character isn’t complicated either, in fact, it’s a generic character and not something I haven’t seen before – the author took a generic character tweaked it a little to give the impression of complicated and used it.And I don’t think I’m exaggerating anything, although I probably have a more sensitive sense of ethics.
And red is over-analyzing her character, I would know, because I have done the same thing and can see the same pattern, but it’s probably impossible to see now, if you think back on it few months after the show is over you’ll see my point.
I do agree on one thing though this show is not for me.

You do realize that people who say she’s more complex than what she appears to be are doing so because they know things from the novels that you don’t know about (but can’t mention them because of spoilers)

Meaning their judgement doesn’t come from just what we’ve seen so far.

So it might seem like over analysis now (though in all honesty I’m not sure what does since you keep repeating people are over analyzing but never get specific as to what or why) but there’s more info that could come out in later episodes to back up their claim.

I’m also not seeing where people give Masuzu too much credit,right about everyone agrees that she’s a “manipulative, cruel, insensitive bitch”

They’re not the only ones who know things from the novels, I looked it up too, recently, and the rest of her character was pretty much how I expected it to be(unless they change it in the anime).And I only said over-analyzing to red’s post in which he should have put a spoiler if he was basing his theory from the novels.This maybe the first time for some people to see this type of character but like a few posters above me had mentioned it’s nothing new.Of course my reasons for not watching isn’t because it’s generic, that’s a part of it too, but mostly because I dislike seeing “manipulative, cruel, insensitive bitch” types in romcom/harem shows, especially so when they go over the top with it – of course this is just my opinion not everyone has to agree with it.

Over analysis? I’m just taking what I’ve seen from the anime itself as basis. There are definitely more reasons that Masuzu wanted to have Eita as her boyfriend than just deflecting popularity. Hell, she could’ve just done did what she did so she could mess with Eita and give him hell. So from there I give a hypothesis on the other motives that she would have. The third paragraph that I made however used scenes from the anime to explain certain aspects of Masuzu. Up to this point right now Masuzu does care for Eita and doesn’t want to be left alone. Anyways, please give an explanation on what I’m over analyzing so that I may mull over it.

ahha you cant deny its a still a reason she did it! now all the confessions will stop and all the jealousy goes on eita and less gossips from girls that like the boys that like masuza! its a big winnnn ill agree this isnt just the one reason but its one that makes her life a bit brighter :) having a fake boyfriend thats becoming a true friend! lol at expense of chiwa i suppose still her fault for not being honest with him sooonneeer!

wow so saddended by verdants departure… i wanted to find out more about whats all the buzz on this psycho-pass show…dang its pretty dark kinda interesting! its like the communists regime won but substitute them with “all knowing machines” that dictates your fate on what you can or cannot do! ahah the machine to determine if youre good or evil or going to be evil thats heavvvvy! so now at least i better understand this guys “im so cool” response on why id need to consult a psychological therapist lawl too psycho-pass for you for you budddy boy! haha

Masuzu is a bitch, but you can tell that later on, she’ll realize her mistakes and change her ways. Then she’ll turn from a bitch to a plain main car tsundere because she won’t admit that she, who is an anti-love person, fell in love.

Masuzu has gone to far in this episode, she deserves a bitch slap. I mean … who is low enough to trick her colleague to get humiliated in the crowd in order to give her a mental scar about love. … no morally good one does.

Masuzu is too much for being a tsundere. She is plain bitch need some lesson and common moral sense shoved to her brain.

I’m sorry but Masuzu just pisses me off so much.. She is completely manipulative over Ei-kun.. It’s kind of obvious that his childhood friend likes him yet she is still acting like she plays some kind of important role even though she is a ‘fake’ girlfriend.. Grr. I really want him to get with Chiwa but it’s very hard to tell in these types of anime.. Does anyone else agree that Masuzu is a complete bitch or is that just me? Idk why but she just rubbed me the wrong way and I just don’t like her character at all.